Howard hugues biography

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Howard Hughes: His Life and Madness

May 23, 2021

Even after finishing a biography about him, I still do not think I know very much about who Howard Hughes actually was. That is not an indictment of Donald Bartlett and James Steele. They penned an exhaustive account of Hughes' life as far as they were able to. The problem lies not with their research, which was quite extensive, but with the extreme secrecy that Hughes operated under. When you are writing about someone who spent the final two decades of his life almost exclusively living in a darkened bedroom, seeing almost no one, it is going to be difficult to piece together what exactly the man thought and did.

Hughes was not a self-made man. He inherited, at the young age of 18, his father's immensely successful business Hughes Tool Company. Both of Hughes' parents died suddenly when he was a teenager, and this had a profound effect on his life. Not only because he came into vast wealth so quickly, but because he was very much a

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When his father said he could have any present, Hughes chose a ride on a Curtiss Seaplane, which sparked his love of aviation that would continue for the rest of his life.

Hughes’ parents enrolled him in the Thatcher School, an elite boarding school in Ojai, California in 1921. Just a year later, his mother passed away and he returned to Houston with his father. In Houston Hughes started taking classes at the Rice Institute, but ultimately dropped out. In 1924, Howard Hughes Sr. died from a fatal heart attack. At the young age of 18, Howard Hughes Jr. inherited both his father’s fortune and his Texas-based, namesake tool company.

Hughes married his first wife Ella Rice in 1925. The couple settled in Los Angeles, where Hughes received his first introduction to the motion picture industry through his uncle, who had become an established producer. Within a few years the fiercely determined Hughes became a successful Hollywood producer himself. His first film, Swell Hogan,

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Howard Hughes

1905-1976

Who Was Howard Hughes?

Howard Hughes was an aviator and rulle director who inherited his family's successful oil tool business and began investing in films. He produced several films, including the hit Hell's Angels.

He is largely known for being one of the wealthiest men and one of the most famous recluses, but Hughes had many professional accomplishments before withdrawing from public life.

Film and Flight

Born on December 24, 1905, in Houston, Texas, Hughes was the son of a successful oil-drill tool manufacturer and inherited the family business in 1923 at the age of 18. He used some of his fortune to finance films, beginning in 1926. He produced several movies, including the World War I epic Hell's Angels (1930), which featured expensive aerial fight sequences and a then-unknown actress named jean Harlow. Some of his other significant films were Scarface (1932) and The Outlaw (1941). During his days in Hollywood, Hughes developed a reput